From Donald Trump’s use of Twitter, to social media mourning, to cyber-bullying: the evidence of media influence today is all around us. As such, good media research is more important than ever, and crucially, is something all students can and should do. Exploring Media Research is an eye-opening exploration of what it means to understand and do media research today. Carefully balancing theory and practice, Andy Ruddock demystifies the process, showing you don’t need huge amounts of time or money to do meaningful media analysis. The book: Introduces students to the scope and seriousness of media influence Shows them how to tie their own interests to academic concepts and research issues Explains how to use this understanding to develop proper research questions Translates key theoretical concepts into actual research methods students can use to explore the media texts, events, markets and professionals that interest them. Bringing theory to life throughout with a range of contemporary case studies, Exploring Media Research is a thoughtful and practical guide to gathering and analysing media data. It is essential reading for students of media, communication and cultural studies.

From Donald Trump’s use of Twitter, to social media mourning, to cyber-bullying: the evidence of media influence today is all around us. As such, good media research is more important than ever, and crucially, is something all students can and should do. Exploring Media Research is an eye-opening exploration of what it means to understand and do media research today. Carefully balancing theory and practice, Andy Ruddock demystifies the process, showing you don’t need huge amounts of time or money to do meaningful media analysis. The book: Introduces students to the scope and seriousness of media influence Shows them how to tie their own interests to academic concepts and research issues Explains how to use this understanding to develop proper research questions Translates key theoretical concepts into actual research methods students can use to explore the media texts, events, markets and professionals that interest them. Bringing theory to life throughout with a range of contemporary case studies, Exploring Media Research is a thoughtful and practical guide to gathering and analysing media data. It is essential reading for students of media, communication and cultural studies.

In this book, Barrie Gunter provides a broad overview of the methodological perspectives adopted by media researchers in their attempt to derive a better understanding of the nature, role and impact of media in society. By tracing the epistemological and theoretical roots of the major methodological perspectives, Gunter identifies the various schools of social scientific research that have determined the major perspectives in the area. Drawing a distinction between quantitative and qualitative methods, he discusses the relative advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and examines recent trends that signal a convergence of approaches and their associated forms of research. The unique strength of this book is that it discusses the theoretical underpinnings of media research methodologies, and thereby presents a deeper discussion of methodologies than simply whether or not they offer techniques that generate reliable data.

A Handbook of Media and Communications Research presents qualitative as well as quantitative approaches to the analysis and interpretation of media, covering perspectives from both the social sciences and the humanities. The Handbook offers a comprehensive review of earlier research and a set of guidelines for how to think about, plan, and carry out studies of media in different social and cultural contexts. Divided into sections on the history, systematics and pragmatics of research, and written by internationally acknowledged specialists in each area, the Handbook will be a standard reference work for students and researchers.

Universities around the world now actively encourage academics to engage in public scholarship, publishing in traditional and new media – newspapers, television, radio, blogs and social media. Education Research and the Media addresses this situation, using empirical and reflexive accounts, to interrogate and advance the ways in which this shift is usually discussed. Drawing on Australian and international scholars and contexts, this edited collection probes the effects of these engagements. Taken together, the book offers new conceptualisations of the junctures and disjunctures of local, national and transnational mediascapes in education research, working across both traditional media and social media platforms. The book takes as its starting point that traditional national media, while still significant, are now embedded in practices and discourses that transcend geographic and spatial boundaries. Global media logics challenge the profitability and operations of media corporations, as the production of news and information is paradoxically both democratised and fragmented. There is a limited body of research about how this mediatised landscape impacts on public scholarship. This is the first book in the field of education to systematically investigate this landscape, using empirical examples and analysis, as well as a range of theoretical and conceptual approaches.

This unique “yearbook” captures the extraordinary events and effects of 2020 on children and media scholars and practitioners. Contributors reflect on how the compounding crises of 2020—the COVID-19 pandemic, international protests for racial justice, and the climate crisis—have prompted them to re-evaluate some aspects of their research, teaching, or production related to children, adolescents, and media. Crises can be opportunities for clarity, revealing creative ways to address collective challenges. This volume, which began as a special issue of Journal of Children and Media, reveals such insights. Contributors discuss how the crises of 2020: Prompted them to reconsider theories and concepts central to research on children, adolescents, and media Fostered new priorities for how and what they teach Spurred creative ways to produce high-quality, accessible educational media for children globally Affected their media engagement with their own children, while they researched children’s media use during social distancing Weighed more heavily on scholars and practitioners of color, and how professional communities can best respond to those challenges These 36 international contributions reveal how children and media scholars and professionals worked through the crises of 2020, putting newfound clarity to creative use in the service of children all over the world.

Modern Media in the Home is a readable and lively account of recent empirical research on media use in the home. It reports an important study of the use of the breadth of the mass media in Wales in the digital era. Examining the place of the media in everyday life and social relationships, Modern Media in the Home focuses on ten diverse households, and what emerges is a fascinating account of the diversity of contemporary media uses. Reporting the fine-grained detail of domestic interaction, it explores how the media are used and made sense of, and the sorts of experiences, interaction and identities that are sustained or developed through media use.

'Understanding Media Users' provides students with a solid history of media effects' and an integrated account of analytical approaches that constitute media reception theory.